Note a couple of items on this marker produced in 1994. The text questions the status of these First Africans as being enslaved or indentured and one should note that until 1661 the Virginia Colony had no laws pertaining to the institution of race based slavery or any other form of slavery. The second item is the last sentence which is incorrect in its statement that “The U.S. abolished slavery in 1863.” That is a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation which was a Presidential order and only applied to the slave-holding states that were in rebellion against the United States. The U.S. actually abolished slavery by the 13th Amendment passed by Congress in 1865 and ratified by the states in December of that year.

A 400-year anniversary…

Of what you ask? No doubt there will be many 400-year anniversaries around the world in 2019, but my focus and hopefully yours will be on a few things that took place here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, then but a colony in the British Empire.

Let me satisfy your curiosity.

Think Jamestown and 1619. According to historians there were four firsts. A 2019 Commemoration Committee has been hard at work to develop the celebration of the following: the first representative assembly in the New World; the recruitment of English women in significant numbers; the observance of the first official English Thanksgiving in North America; and the arrival of the first-recorded Africans to English North America.

Now, tell me which of these might be of greatest interest both historically and to modern-day minds?

The first is something that may have influenced the founding fathers 168 years later as they sought to craft the Constitution of the United States. That 1619 representative assembly was under the auspices of England, and it likely represented a select group and not all those it served. We have moved far beyond that initial endeavor. Nonetheless, it would be instructive to examine how it was developed and subsequently conducted itself; we can add that to our trove of knowledge.

I personally would find the recruitment of English women, presumably to come to the colony, to be of note. What kind of women would come to such a place and for what purpose? Was the effort successful and do we know who they were? Could they be called the founding mothers?

Ah, Thanksgiving! We are in constant competition with the Pilgrims over that one. I am not sure it matters anymore, if we get to enjoy a delicious turkey-day feast.

That leaves us with the fourth event: the arrival of the first-recorded Africans to English North America. Well, you might imagine that would be my choice of most significant and for very good reasons.

Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, there was nothing in the Virginia textbooks about the arrival of these first Africans at Jamestown. In fact, what I learned was limited to John Smith and John Rolfe, and maybe a scant line or two about the local Native Americans who occupied the land. That history has been proven inaccurate on many levels due to excellent research and archaeology conducted during the last 50 years.

Some of that very research has identified and fleshed out the truths regarding those first Africans and yet, that information continues not to be widely shared.

Think about these questions. Who were these people of color? Where did they come from? Were they a religious people and if so, what was their religion?

My understanding is that they were not sold as slaves but as indentured servants, the same as those indentured servants of European heritage. Subsequently, it is my understanding that upon completing their indenture they were given the commensurate cash or land and their freedom from any kind of bondage. The institution of race-based slavery would not be established in the colonies for several more decades nor many of the laws governing people of color.

Could these twenty-odd individuals have been significant and contributing factors to the settlement of the Virginia Colony? Who did they marry? Could they, too, have been among the first families of Virginia?

I believe through examination, commemoration and dissemination of the wealth of documented research on this topic, we will finally know the informed answers to these questions and more.

Note: The VDHR let me know that the 1994 signage was removed and a replacement erected in 2015. It is unfortunate that the former sign remians on the web!!

Have you been thinking about these questions I posed last week? Who were these people of color? Where did they come from? Were they a religious people and if so, what was their religion?

I have been pondering, researching, reading and listening. I am on the path to greater knowledge, but yet do not have definitive answers.

When the nation officially commemorated the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, I quietly informed those who requested my support that if it was to be a rehash of what was disseminated 50years earlier, “thank you, but I will pass.” However, I was informed that the goal was to tell a more comprehensive history including the common soldier, the politics and the story of the enslaved complete with economic, political and humanitarian stories. I became fully engaged.

It is never too late to seek and share the truth!

I expect we will witness the same kind of enlightenment during the 2019 400th commemoration and we will come away wiser for the effort.

For the sake of study and discussion, indulge me in the sharing of my own current findings.

The “20 and odd Negroes” as described by John Rolfe were believed to have been originally captured by the Portuguese in Angola, West Central Africa

Map of Angola, West Central Africa

and were bound along with an estimated 330 others for sale as enslaved people to Vera Cruz, New Spain (current-day Mexico) on the vessel the Sau Joao Bautista. They were attacked in transit by privateers, one licensed by the Dutch and the other by Britain. The ships were named the White Lion and the Treasurer; the captain of the former took the “20 and odd” as spoils. The story of the Treasurer is yet to be fully documented.

Below is an excerpt from the article published in 2011 and modified in 2017 in the Encyclopedia of Virginia by the Virginia Humanities in partnership with the Library of Virginia. It is a thorough account and the entire piece is worthy of your attention.

“Virginia’s first Africans arrived at Point Comfort, on the James River, late in August 1619. There, “20 and odd Negroes” from the English ship White Lion were sold in exchange for food and some were transported to Jamestown, where they were sold again, likely into slavery. Historians have long believed these Africans to have come to Virginia from the Caribbean, but Spanish records suggest they had been captured in a Spanish-controlled area of West Central Africa.”

It is critical to read an article from start to finish, study the resources and then search for other articles on the same subject.

“Many of the captives would have come from urban backgrounds and after capture could have received the basics of Christianity because Portuguese law required all slaves to be baptized Catholics before arriving in the Americas.”

My concern is terminology. Were these first Africans traded or sold? In my opinion, there is little doubt of that, however, indentured servants were also described as sold. To assume that the term sold meant into what we know now as slavery, is not a definitive interpretation based simply on the choice of the idiom.

According to records, these “20 and odd” were indeed enslaved by the Portuguese when the ships were attacked. Nonetheless, the privateers did not take their bounty to a country that sanctioned the institution of slavery. Instead, they sailed and landed in the colony of Virginia, a colony that would not institute slavery until 1661.

It begs the question, what were their expectations? Could they have known that the Jamestown settlement needed laborers and were they familiar with the system of headrights instituted in 1618?

The compensation for their assets was food and supplies.

Food for thought: Is custom equal to law? If an official position is stated based on supposition, should the study end there? Always remember whose voice is being spoken and never fail to examine the agenda of that voice.

There is nothing that gets us closer to the truth than open, honest and fact-based debate. Recently, I experienced a taste of debate with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR) and am grateful, but not done.

The language on the revised roadside marker was based on a supposition that the Englishmen residing in Jamestown and surrounds in 1619 encountered Africans before only as slaves, if not by law then by custom. The conclusion then is that they carried that custom with them to the Virginia Colony.

Logic and some fact support this theory. At least a few of the folks at Jamestown were previously in the Caribbean where slavery of Africans was the practice. Also, let’s not forget that when captured, the “20 and odd Africans” were enslaved and bound for sale to New Spain.

My argument is simple. If we are willing to accept one supposition, should we not consider others? Is it enough to cite custom in another country and ignore the custom or practice in the area in question?

Before 1619, in the colony of Virginia, there is no evidence of Africans. Thus, it is fair to presume there existed no laws, customs or practices about Africans.

The arrival of the “20 and odd Negroes” (as described by John Rolfe) was not by request, order, or plan by the colonists. The unexpected arrival may have caused a level of confusion.

No doubt, some of the colonists saw the opportunities in “keeping” the new arrivals to expand their personal wealth via the headright system. In the headright system, the head of household received 50 acres for every member of his household including spouse, children and servants.

There existed a conundrum. In the Virginia colony in 1619, there was no law, custom or practice of slavery: not of Africans (there were not Africans), Native Americans, or Europeans. However, the laws governing indentured servants were well established and in practice in the colony.

Is it not logical to suppose that the solution for the unexpected arrival of the Africans was to sell them as indentured servants?

In fact, there is documentation of named individual Africans who served as indentured servants.

The challenge is that there has yet to be found a record of any discussion by the governmental body resulting in an official opinion pertaining to the status of the 20 and odd. At this point, it is hypothesis, conjecture, logic, peppered with a few scattered facts, that rule the day. That needs to be very clear.

Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) historic markers—approved VDHR—are limited to 100 words. A momentous challenge, for sure. Regardless, it is incumbent upon any historian or historic entity to be hyper-vigilant in its choice of words. The public views such statements and exhibits as gospel, creating an enormous burden and responsibility on the authors.

A dear friend once advised me to always examine the profile and agenda of the individual espousing an opinion. It is an instructive piece of advice.

The facts that exist surrounding the Jamestown settlement and particularly the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 are scant at best. As we disseminate theories, we must provide all known facts, customs and practices. Otherwise, we are projecting only one variation of the story and nothing from those without a voice.

Stay tuned for an interesting discussion of the differences between the words history, historiography and historicity.

The first Africans to land on Virginia soil: Were they indentured or enslaved? The more I read, study and discuss with others with expansive knowledge of the subject, the muddier the waters become. The opinions are quite divided, and I confess that my leanings are with those who believe they were indentured. That is what I wish to believe, and I must be cautious of allowing my wishes to taint my conclusions. The answer for me is to keep pursuing the debate.

For the sake of objectivity, it is necessary to take personal opinion, bias, and preconception off the table. Study what is known, what the sources are and familiarize your working vocabulary with at least a layperson’s pragmatic understanding of terminology. That is the very path I am on and hope you will come along with me.

There are three commonly used terms regarding the study of history that are distinctly different and good to think about. History, historiography, and historicity. I keep wanting to add histrionics; though it may be a by-product of truthful historic findings, it is not a tool to be beneficial in the study.

A comparison of the three terms explains them as follows: history is the study of the past; historiography is the study of the sources and assumptions used by those who have or currently convey the history; and historicity is the process of extricating fact from legend, revealing more accurately how the past unfolded.

Hridith Sudev, the founder of Project GreenWorld International, explains them this way: “History is the taste you retain from a delicious meal. Historiography is the recipe historians used to create history. Historicity is you trying to recreate how exactly that dish must have tasted even after the recipe book is burned.”

In my own work, I find the process of historicity to be the most challenging and I find historiography to be the most valuable tool to get us to the truth. Does it beg the question: What is the truth? Not to belabor a query that is worthy of more ink than we have here. However, it is critical to acknowledge that truth can wear many outfits depending on the perspective of the viewer.

It is to that point, as we seek and disseminate public history- versus a personal quandary – that we hold fast to a duty to present the facts as we find them and if we must speculate, then we must also be prepared to defend the speculation with known facts.

Fact-finding in the process of legal deliberation requires substantive evidence and credible witnesses as well as a charge to the court or jury to lay aside circumstantial material (if that is all there is) and conclude beyond a reasonable doubt.

Granted historiography and jurisprudence are not always going to be “apples to apples,” yet I find that many of the principles utilized in the presentation of a solid case in court apply well to supporting a more accurate coverage of historic events. Feel free to consider it as mere food for thought.

In closing today, there are a few other terms cited below that are worthy of review and understanding as we continue to delve into the question of indentured or enslaved in respect to those first Africans.

The graphic depicts a set of laws known as Dale’s Laws that governed the Colony of Virginia (Jamestown) from 1610 to 1619.

A few terms to ponder over as we attempt to sift through the interpretation of sparse facts to arrive at a reasonable conclusion as to the status of the first Africans to arrive on Virginia soil: law, legal laws, de facto laws, codified laws, customs, indentured servants, and slaves.

The definitions below are pulled from various dictionaries and are by no means meant to be a full semester’s lecture on the basics of the law, but simply a leg up in understanding the nuanced differences.

Law and legal law are commonly used interchangeably and refer to a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. However, the legal law carries an additional descriptor as one that is enforced by a controlling authority and when violated is subject to criminal punishment or civil liability. That would be versus “dad’s law” which, when broken, means the perpetrator is grounded for a month without the car.

De facto laws exist based on the reality rather than specific authority. An example might be that on the playground of an elementary school the children are segregated by gender, not because the teacher or the school regulated the separation, but because the children seemed to naturally prefer it that way.

Codified laws are those laws that have been assembled and written down in the process of stating clearly the system of laws governing a particular jurisdiction. The Virginia Code is the bible of Virginia law—both civil and criminal.

Common law, an English tradition, is law based on a judicial decision or previous example of case law and not on a written statute. The understanding of the common law is that there is precedence for the case at hand.

Custom is a traditional or widely accepted set of behaviors specific to a particular society, place or time.

Indenture is to bind, employ or contract an individual as in early deeds for real estate were termed indentures. An indentured servant, whether a volunteer or forced, is one who is bound to another for a period of years, usually for labor.

A slave is a person bound in a legal system that applies the legal principles of property to people enabling individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals. The questions of hereditary slavery, the issue of enslavement for life and a multitude of other laws pertaining to slaves vary depending on the ruling government.

These terms by no means bring us to a point of illumination on the discussion of the status of those first Africans. Yet, to debate the probabilities one must have some knowledge of the language being bantered about.

A noted historian pointed out to me the fact that the Jamestown settlement was a private enterprise funded by the Virginia Company and therefore not under the rule of what we think of as the House of Burgesses, General Assembly or other such legislative bodies. The implication is that it was the commercial body that set the rules and regulations and presumably had more latitude to determine who was indentured and who was enslaved. This factoid fascinated me and merited additional investigation.

After choosing the site at Jamestown in 1607, a local authority was established per the instructions of the Virginia Company with a president and six council members, including Christopher Newport and John Smith. I will have to dig more deeply to learn how far their authority extended.

Jumping ahead and bypassing the “Starving Time” and the revolving door of governors, by 1610 or thereabouts they were designating the head man as governor. On July 30, 1619, newly appointed Governor Yeardley called for the first representative legislative assembly. The first “20 and odd” Africans arrived the following month.